


In our Brains

by ramblingfangirl



Series: Those he forgot [2]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Amica Enduras, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Gift Giving, Mnemosurgery, but they're not the focus so I didn't tag it that, kind of background m/m, referenced canon character death, with Scattergun and Tumbler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-16 11:09:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14163528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ramblingfangirl/pseuds/ramblingfangirl
Summary: Some secrets are harder to keep than others.For Brainstorm, amongst the absolute worst of all are those that used to be precious, shared memories.Until the self-inflicted pricks of needles in a friend's neck made them that no more.





	In our Brains

**Author's Note:**

> Just going to quickly say that credit it owed to Tumblr users whirlibird and sxizzor who helped give ideas which inspired me to write this!
> 
> Hope you enjoy reading!

_“Are you two amica?” Was asked again, recently._

_Not long before he made his way to here, in fact._

_It was by a colleague this time. Brainstorm didn’t know them too well. Didn’t care much to._

_Too busy, busy, busy with his own work to get to know everybody. They wouldn’t like him anyway. Too intimidated by his genius._

_But still in that moment, no matter knowing so very little about them at all, he’d still found himself disliking them immensely._

_Not necessarily because of the question, no._

_Not really._

_But because Brainstorm already knew exactly what answer Tumbler was going to give._

_Genuinely, without any sort of hesitation._

_“No. We’re not.”_

_An answer which sent a pang to his very spark itself every time…_

 

* * *

 

“Brainstorm? It’s Tumbler.”

“Busy!” Brainstorm called without even looking up from what he was doing.

The colour was just starting to shift in the viscous slime he had contained in front of him. Which could mean one of two things: either it was becoming that super-super-glue he was _supposed_ to be making or he had just inadvertently started a new species of sentient slime.

How exciting!!!

“I just need to borrow you. It won’t take long.” Tumbler persisted.

“Maybe later, I’m in the middle of science!” The liquid shifted and made a sudden shift of movement, slamming against it’s containment with a loud _thud_.

Brainstorm was leaning towards this being a case of him inadvertently starting a new species of sentient slime.

“Brainstorm!” Tumbler meanwhile was not dropping whatever issue he’d come to the lab with. “Can you just- I’ve said it won’t take long.”

“So we’ll do it later then. Go away!”  The slime…seemed to be multiplying. Splitting into smaller slimes which were also slamming against the container with littler _thuds_.

He wondered what would happen if he added just a _bit_ of-

“You can’t be like this with me.” Tumbler objected, not going away.

“...Because?”

-Maybe adding just a bit of that had been a mistake.

The slime was multiplying and growing much faster now, and he didn’t like the colour it had gone either. The colour it had before looked much nicer.

This new shade was just _tacky_.

“I’m your friend! Being nice to me’s part of that.”

The container was starting to sizzle. Bubbles forming as the slime creatures stopped their insistent slamming and instead just remained still. The container was already full, their numbers were still growing, and they now seemed to have become corrosive.

It was only a matter of time until they got out now.

Shame. Brainstorm would have liked to have kept them a bit longer. This development of aggressiveness and sentience was fascinating, and he was sure he could find some awesome way to weaponize it!

… _But_ …if it broke out and melted his and Tumbler’s faces off… _and_ ruined all his other projects in here…

“And we can’t do it later. After this shift is done I’m being sent to-“

Tumbler was cut off by a sudden _vwoosh_ as Brainstorm used his failsafe.

The failsafe was an amazing plan he always had on hand for situations _just_ like this.

An _ultra-incinerator_.

Couldn’t go wrong with- _Whoa!_

Now _that_ was interesting.

Very bad. Very dangerous but also very cool.

Couldn’t have predicted that happening.

_…Actually._

“Maybe going with your plan _wouldn’t_ be such a bad idea Tumbles!” With a cheery thumbs up.

And with that, the lab was very quickly exited and put into immediate lockdown.

With the decision that this was something that would be dealt with _later_. No biggy.

“We can’t do it in here!” Tumbler shouted over the facility’s now blaring alarms, as they headed away from the locked down reinforced door.

“Obviously, the slime would eat us.”

“No, we can’t do it in the _facility_ because- why did you even _make_ that?!”

“I didn’t hear anybody telling me _not_ to make that.”

“Why did I even ask?” Tumbler questioned to himself.

“But we can’t do it here because Scatters isn’t allowed in. He doesn’t have the clearance.” He then went back to his originally intended explanation.

“Scatters? What’s he to do with this?”

Brainstorm had presumed that Tumbler must have required his brilliance to help him with something, but if his conjunx was also involved…?

“He’s _waiting_ so we need to get a move on. I told him I would be quick.”

Tumbler avoided the question entirely.

And continued to do so for his subsequent questions as they made their way to their destination.

Whereupon reaching it he was greeted by an enthusiastic-

“Stormy!” Hands gripping onto his shoulders. “You made it!”

“Whatcha been up to? Any cool projects?”

“Of course! What do you _take me for?_ Everything I make is cool! What’s in _now i_ s super-super-glue.”

“That could be medical!” He’d _known_ that would be what Scattergun caught onto. “Y’know, leaking out all your energon from severed wires, just stick ‘em back together with that and all’s good! ‘Till you get them to a medic anyway.”

“If it weren’t corrosive, sentient and aggressive then yes! That would work perfectly!” Brainstorm agreed.

The smile of Scatters remained on, but at the same time it and the rest of his face became distorted with what was clearly confusion.

“He just had to put his lab into lockdown because of that.” Tumbler anticipated his conjunx’s oncoming question as he made his way further into the room.

Scattergun moved to follow him, letting go of Brainstorm’s shoulders in the process.

“Maybe next time you can make nice sentient super-super-glue! Or normal super-super-glue.” He chimed back as he did so.

Brainstorm considered the idea, resting his hand on his chin in thought.

The question is, how would he _ensure_ the _niceness_ of the substance?

But, actually, another questioned remained that he looped back to too: he’d been forced out of his lab by Tumbler’s insistence along with a very dangerous substance. That much he knew.

But what was he doing _here_?

That question was then repeated aloud.

“Gonna tell him now?” Scatters asked Tumbler, beaming and looping his arms around _his_ shoulders from behind, before giving a playful tug on his finials.

Tumbler in turn lifted a hand up and took a hold one of his conjunx’s, helm tilting slightly to the side so that both of theirs rested together.

 “Brainstorm, you’re my _best friend_ and there’s something I’d like to do. To show that.” Tumbler spoke fondly.

“And since I _know_ , you gave Fins the moral support to propose to _me_ -” Scatters paused to give that Fins a quick peck before unfurling himself from around him and starting to quickly move backwards.

“-I’m here to return that favour.” Was finished with a wink.

Whatever quip Brainstorm might have about this was then cut off before it could even be started, at the sight of Tumbler starting to open his chest plates.

“Brainstorm. I bid you stand in the glow of my spark that you feel the heat of my words and know them to be true. I bid you to receive my light and in doing so become my amica endura- from now until forever.”

…He was never stumped. Brainstorm was _never ever_ stumped. He tool pride in his permanent unstumped-ness. But…

Hands taken by Tumbler in a firm grasp.

“As you are to me, may I be to you, today, tomorrow and always”

Brainstorm knew what he was supposed to do here. The words he was supposed to repeat.

He knew the ceremony to become amica endura.

It’s just he’d _never_ thought anyone would _ever_ want to do it with _him._

Meaning, that in an occasion so rare that one might never witness it, Brainstorm hesitated.

Whether it was from the shock of it or because– because he was _touched._

And when he _did_ say those words, he meant them with every fibre of his being.

 “Today, tomorrow and _always._ ”

 

* * *

 

_An answer which sent a pang to his very spark itself every time…_

_Because it was an unknowing lie._

_Brainstorm treasured that memory, as much as he’d never said it. Had always kept it close to his very spark._

_But for Tumbler, for Tumbler it had died with Scatters._

_Purged from his brain by his own needles before Brainstorm had even been able to know to stop it._

_…He should have known to stop it._

_He was his amica, how could he have not known what Tumbler was going to do?_

_“I was sure you were.” The colleague had spoken again._

_“Nope!” And with that Brainstorm had lied too._

_“But that’s an idea! Prolonged proximity to my genius as amica might just boost yours!” He’d turned to face his friend._

_His friend who’d then scoffed at the apparent joke, causing Brainstorm to feel his spark break all over again._

_…But he couldn’t tell him. He knew what that would do to him._

_Couldn’t tell him about Scatters, who had deserved so much better than this, and couldn’t even tell him exactly who he himself was to him either._

_He couldn’t do that to Tumbler._

_Instead, he just had to watch._

_No matter how it hurt or how sometimes it was all he could do to not just tell him! Tell him all those shared things he’d suddenly been forced to keep all to himself._

_When asked if they were amica he would lie._

_When he listened as Tumbler mused about feeling sad for no reason, or how bare his home seemed and how he just couldn’t figure out why, he would stay silent._

_Lie and stay silent as he had to let his friend’s secrets rattle around and around and around over and over and over in his brain, as he kept them from that very friend._

 

* * *

 

_And from you._

With that lingering, ever prevalent thought, Brainstorm spoke at last, looking down.

"Sorry he couldn’t make it again.” He apologised on behalf of a mech who didn’t even know he was here.

_“Where are you going?” “Getting minerals! Can never have too many Tumbler!”_

“It’s not that he doesn’t care. You know him as well as me. Cares too much.” He fiddled with the container in his hands.

Somebody who didn’t care _too much_ would never have even been friendly with known knock off MTOs who didn’t fit the mould they were made for.

And somebody who didn’t care _too much_ would remember when they became _more_.

“It’s just he prefers to think of you…before.” Helm further drooped.

“And he does! Think of you that is. Every day. And talk! So much it almost gets _annoying_ really. Blah-Scattergun-Blah.”

And _he_ repeats the same lie as always to a grave who should but never will be visited by their conjunx. A grave he’s visiting now because _someone_ ought too.

Or it would be like the mech contained in it had never even existed at all.

Tumbler had gone a total of _once,_ carrying himself with a strange sort of detachment the entire time, before going off to lock himself away. It had been assumed to just give himself some time.

And then when he came out…

_“Who?” A blank, confused face had stared back at him. The worse look he could ever possibly have gotten._

“That’s why he sent me. His favourite scientist and amica extraordinaire to keep you company.” He placed the thing he had down on the ground.

“I brought a gift too! That super-super-glue you liked the idea of. Got it non-explosive, non-corrosive, non-radioactive, non-sentient, non…there was a _lot_ of ways that project turned out that wasn’t super-super-glue. Not that I _regret_ any of them. The science of it was _awesome_. But this one is just _boring_ regular super-super-glue which could be used for medical stuff. Went back to it for you. You’re welcome.”

There was no reply, of course.

That would be a different issue entirely, if a dead mech was talking.

Brainstorm slumped against the wall, drumming his digits against it.

Thinking.

“His _habits_ have gotten worse since you left.” He confessed at last, because who else was he supposed to confess too now?

And this _was_ the truth this time.

You used to barely be able to notice it at all. Just the occasional gap in a memory. Something that could have gotten passed off as just genuine forgetfulness if you didn’t know any better.

Not so much now.

Not _at all_ now.

“Seems, with you, he didn’t feel the need to do it so much. You were good for him.”

And in his absence, Brainstorm _hadn’t_ been good enough to stop him from spiralling.

No matter how much he had tried.

“But don’t you worry Scattergun, I’ll keep my optics on him. Look after him for you.”

A reassurance that was _terribly_ un-reassuring with that past and current precedence in mind.

But he _would_ do better. He _had to._

Because-

“Isn’t that what an amica is supposed to do?”

Today, tomorrow and always

_Even if he forgets us._


End file.
